Jayhan Sim, Author at Jayhan Loves Design & Japan - Page 30 of 44

J-pop songs & artists I enjoy the most in 2007

26 Dec 07

. J-Pop, Japan

J-pop songs & artists I enjoy the most in 2007

It’s been a great year for all the J-pop enjoyment, big thanks to the convenience of the web technology that let me easily access to the music that is never happened before. Because of this, I get to know more of the diversity of Japanese music industry, although I think that I’m just touching 5% of all. Plus, with the social music site Last.fm, I get to know which artists’ works I listened the most for the year 2007.

From the artist chart, the top 5 J-pop artists are: YUI (1,004 spins), Kimura Kaela (703), GReeeeN (658), Hamasaki Ayumi (547), and ERIKA (460). Can’t believe YUI get the number 1, which has 50% more spins than my “godly” idol Ayumi! About the Japan 4 new divas that I written back in May, Yuna Ito get 6th place but Ayaka did not even get into top 25 spot, well she had nice tunes but seems that I not really into her songs. Besides that, I also discovered some great new artists and groups that I would like to express, as well as some songs that I really like in 2007.

Oricon: Whom are you going to spend Christmas with

24 Dec 07

. Japan

Oricon: Whom are you going to spend Christmas with?

Christmas is around the corner, and many people started to plan out their best Christmas celebration, and to celebrate with who. So, Oricon had conducted a survey targeting to audience from aged 10s to 20s on “Whom are you going to spend Christmas with?”. From the survey result, 25.2% of aged 20s male answered “lover”, however many responded with “alone” from 10s aged audiences due to busy preparing for upcoming exam.

On the 20s aged male that answered “lover”, a following questionnaire on “how to celebrate with your love one”, many of them still haven’t decided yet, while other replied “celebrate leisurely at home”, “going out having dinner” and many other celebration methods that is unique or simple, to spend the great moment with the love one.

Celebrate Christmas with J-pop

22 Dec 07

. J-Pop, Japan

Celebrate Christmas with J-pop music

It is going to be a lonely Christmas celebration for me T.T, it has been like this for 22 years of my whole life. Fortunately I still have my best companion always by my side, and “she” is Japanese Pop music. During the Christmas celebration month, many Japan artists releasing songs and singles related to the wonderful Christmas Day. Here I collected some and share with you all :D.

There is 16 songs total in my Christmas J-pop playlist. Some of them are release this year, and some is older. Many popular artists sang songs related to Christmas or have Christmas feel for example L’Arc en Ciel, Namie Amuro, Ketsumeishi, Mai Kuraki, B’z and many more. Personally I think the Ketsumeishi’s song sounds the best. Continue reading to listen to the songs and more.

4 Japan web design galleries that worth visiting

20 Dec 07

. Inspiration, Japan, Web Design

4 Japan web design galleries that worth visiting

There is so much nice web design galleries out there like CSS Beauty, The Best Designs, Best Web Gallery and many more for web designers everyday design inspiration. They showcases the great web design examples from all around the world which displays innovative web surfing experience and design aesthetics. But recently I ask myself, is there any gallery that showcases web designs from Japan? The answer is yes!

From little research on the net, I found four sites that is worth take a visit. Most of them are in Japanese language, but with the help of thumbnails and free translation services out there, I think the language is not the barrier anymore. Let us experience the beauty of Japanese web design!

Creating cool push button in Photoshop

17 Dec 07

. Tutorial

Recently I created a push button and I think it is quite cool and decided to create a tutorial here in my blog. There is quite a variety of styles of push button in the real world and the one I did here is more to gaming arcade push button styles. The final button design is shown above. What do you think?

Like my last tutorial, this tutorial also uses a lot of layer styling. To make the tutorial more understandable and effective, I include a starting working PSD, a final outcome PSD as well as the ASL working layer styles file. You can download it here: Push Button Tutorial Files. Just download and extract it, launch Adobe Photoshop and starts the tutorial!

60 horizontal navigation bar design inspiration

14 Dec 07

. Inspiration, Web Design

60 horizontal navigation bar inspiration

Horizontal navigation bar is one of the basic elements of web design. It occupy less space and grouping the menus horizontally can make page navigation easier too. Plus, it can be customize to be fitted to any kind of designs, from clean and sleek to retro wooden style. Here, I presented you 60 good looking horizontal navigation bar designs that I collected through out my web design research.

I found out that games related sites especially online games utilized horizontal navigation bar, because it can display the menus without using a large space. Navigation bars that build using flash can have cool rollover animation, however horizontal bar also achievable by using CSS list style and rollover effects if you know the ever popular sliding door effect. But in here, I won’t talk about the technique but pure beauty of navigation bar design for your design inspiration and reference. I separated into 3 categories: games related, non games related and good design examples from DeviantArt.

Drip like Jackson Pollock … with mouse

11 Dec 07

. Art & Design, Inspiration

Drip like Jackson Pollock ... with mouse

Yesterday I stumbled upon this interesting website “Jackson Pollock by Miltos Manetas“. It was a blank white color canvas until I move my mouse over it. Magical happened, I start to drip painting like Jackson Pollock! I move my mouse crazily over the blank canvas and change color by clicking on it, a unique composition appeared. This is the most interesting flash drawing API I had ever play!

This interactive flash drawing was built by Miltos Manetas, a Greek born, Los Angeles based artist. By clicking the red heart shape at the top left corner, it reveals a small message said that this site is under a competition for Dazed Digital 50. Vote this site to support it if you like it. But there is another secret message hiding beneath it which I found it accidentally.

Typography + Ikebana = tenspace by WOW

09 Dec 07

. Art & Design, Inspiration, Japan

Typography + Ikebana = tenspace by WOW

When the first time I watch animation “tenspace” by WOW, it was truely amazing! By mixing numbers ranging from 0 – 10 with ikebana, a Japanese art of flower arrangement to create out this masterpiece. The ikebana mainly illustrated by ink, giving a traditional ink and wash painting style, and sitting on the characters. Each set was presented with different approach as it giving a feeling that the conventional characters are growing out some beautiful plants.

Quoted from Dezeen, tenspace is a:

motion graphics installation done by WOW, a Japanese motion graphic company featuring animation of plants and typography. We’ve interpreted the space between each number in a countdown and present it to you in a physical space. Experience a virtual landscape featuring 11 digitally rendered ikebana pieces which draw you in as you speed through time. Clinging to the camera you race through three dimensions viewing each piece one by one.

Yui Aragaki – Heavenly Days

06 Dec 07

. J-Pop, Japan, Lyrics

Yui Aragaki - Heavenly Days

On the 5th December 2007, sweet and natural popular idol Yui Aragaki has release her debut album “Sora”. The album consists of 10 soothing tracks including “Heavenly Days” and “Memories” which is the insert song and theme song of her movie called “Koizora” and “Koisuru Madori” respectedly. With her frequent exposure in various fields, Gakky appears as one of the biggest and most promising new music star right before the end of 2007!

According to a personal interview with her in Music Station in November, singing has been a dream of her. Well, I’m happy of her because it is a dream comes true! To come out with the best results, her dream was assists by many popular singer-songwriter including Tsuji Ayano, Ando Yuko, Toko Furuuchi etc. Besides that, she also participated in writing the song lyrics too. She has very pampered and soft voice, so her songs almost are comfortable and sorrow like “Heavenly Days” which I am introducing here.

15 more Hirano Aya pretty pictures

04 Dec 07

. Downloads, Japan

15 Hirano Aya pictures courtesy of Bomb.tv

It’s been a while, here are 15 pictures of the pretty and talented Japanese idol Hirano Aya! I get to know her because of my forum friend Igorism who his blog entry about Hirano Aya had deeply poisoned me. I am not sure why I admire her, but it is going to be her multiple talents. She is a seiyuu, she sings and she plays music intruments, not to mention her cuteness and sexiness!

Hirano Aya (平野綾, born October 8, 1987) from Aichi Prefecture, Japan, is a seiyū (voice actress) and J-pop singer who has had roles in several anime, visual novels, and TV commercials in Japan. Her popularity was increased significantly thanks to her breakout role as Haruhi Suzumiya in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. She also did other voice over characters in several animes like Nana (as Reira) and Lucky Star (as Konata Izumi).

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